some success with a change in diet...

overlandflyer

overlandflyer

Well-known member
hello from SoCal... i am a retired engineer and for the past 7-8 years i was unfortunately seeing a steady rise in weight. after realizing i had broken through the BMI obese borderline, i got myself motivated to turn this trend around. for the past year i made a few attempts at losing, but i always seemed to stall out well short of my goal. i probably bobbed around this weight for 4-5 months or so. then i started watching online videos about the evils of hidden sugar and also some talks about intermittent fasting. i decided to try both ideas. well at least my own version. i still eat carbs, but now do not dismiss fat for caloric intake as i used to. and i still have some sugar (none added), but limit that to about 6-7 gm/ day.

today i am 8 lbs away from the healthy/ overweight BMI split. 16 lbs under that stall weight i referred to above that i was seemingly at for way too long. i have replacement knees along with one hip, so i really only walk occasionally and i haven't really increased that routine at all. one of the best outcomes is that grocery shopping is pretty simple; i can ignore about 80% of the store. even at this point i'm still losing about 1½-2lbs/ week, but i expect that to slow down as i reach the healthy BMI. for a maintenance diet, i will likely change a bit, perhaps switch to fasting every other day, but not even thinking about it yet.

so i just thought i'd briefly share my success so far and will be looking around to see if anyone else here has some similar ideas. as i've proved to myself more than once, you're never too old to learn something new.

cheers...gary
 
Welcome to the forum :)
 
Hi, Gary & welcome to the forum. Congratulations on finding what works for you. What way do you fast? Do you eat within an 8-hour window each day? I am interested in the different ways of doing IF. I do 5:2. Cheers, Cate.
 
from what i understand, fasting from 14 to 20 hours per day does your body a world of good. the 8/16 schedule seems popular. eat within an 8 hour window and fast for the other 16 hours in the day. for the first few days i stopped eating at 6pm and had a small breakfast the following day at 10am. i'm retired so it's easy for me set any schedule. if you work for a living, i have seen where people shift their "food window" from noon to 8pm, which still gets you that 8/16 schedule. your "breakfast" will be everyone else's lunch.

with me, after a few days of 8/16, i started squeezing the eating window down to 4-5 hours, still beginning around 10am, but now ending around 2-3:00pm. the first meal i have is small... oatmeal or veg omelet or soup. then in a few hours i'll have a moderate dinner (typically meat/ veg based, rice & beans) and finish the eating day with an apple w/some nutbutter or any of a few other small snacks i've come up with... or even a salad. nothing special...very very low or no sugar is the only requirement for anything i eat. but if you can picture the size of a typical restaurant meal... my dinners are less than half that volume of food.

during fasting hours i eat nothing solid. there are times when i drink only water, but most days i have some hot or iced tea or coffee using an artificial sweetener & lemon juice or almond milk. technically some would argue this is not fasting; only water is allowed ...but it works for me. i've also read/ heard that up to 50 cal/day will not end a fast. something doesn't seem right about all the different definitions. not sure about the almond milk, but yes, i know i down a whole ¼ gm of sugar in a glass of iced tea (from the lemon juice of all things!). and there are seemingly endless opinions on artificial sweeteners. i do also drink water, so it's only, maybe 2 glasses of iced tea or 2-3 cups of hot tea/ coffee a day typically.

overall the main thing that surprises me is that i never seem to be hungry. many days i have to remind myself to start eating something around ten so i do not throw off the next day. fortunately i never had much of a sweet tooth and never considered dessert as part of any meal, so i really don't miss many of the things i do not buy anymore. most of those i can reproduce as healthier versions anyway. i suppose this might be harder for some.

my exercise is walking some days. if i go out for a walk, it will be before breakfast. i'm thinking about starting to swim again... i'll have to see how that goes; maybe in the spring. Christmas has me a bit worried. i make shortbread once a year to give out to friends (and strangers)... i'll have to see how THAT goes. i probably shouldn't mention the occasional day i break my fast with a few pints.

cheers...gary
 
this wasn't a major goal of mine, but a really nice side benefit. on my way up the scale about 5-6 years ago, i stumbled upon an auction from a dead sci-fi series. believe me, it's unusual to find a tall size in an actor's costume/ uniform; most actors well under 6'. so when i saw this one in my size (well, it could be my size), i bought it. there is hung for the next few years while i struggled to lose weight... occasionally.

i remembered that when i first tried it on it was very very tight and since i recently realized i'm now well under that weight i thought i'd give it a shot. success was even better than i imagined. i won't say it's still snug in a few places, but a month or two the way i'm going now should be easy.

now if i can only snag those Comic-Con tickets next year!
cheers...gary

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thank you, Cate... as with the space cadet uniform, i'm rediscovering some other more street appropriate attire i abandoned nearly a decade ago now. luckily my taste has always been along the lines of timeless fashion.
 
drat! .... had to take a breathing test at the doc's office yesterday and probably for the first time in decades i had my height checked. at 65 i'm now nearly an inch shorter than i had always thought. at first it didn't seem like that big of a deal, but then it dawned on me that in one afternoon my BMI went up by almost a full number. just as i was zeroing in on 24.x, i'm now behind the curve by perhaps a month.

oh well... no need to panic.... :)
 
Hi Gary
Can't really give you much technical advice but as far as I know that you're in a safe space.
But I do wish you the best and hope the gig is really great for you !!!
Let us all know how it goes
 
listen, on the scale of bad news a doctor can give you, i'd rate losing ½" of height pretty close to the bottom.

when life hands you a lemon, make ceviche!
 
well, if it weren't for that darn height check i would likely have been celebrating this morning hitting a healthy BMI number (24.9) for the first time. of course it usually takes about 2 weeks for a new low to become a steady average, but i won't deny the smile i get seeing a new low scale reading for the first time.

since i'd put up to 90% of my success so far on a diet change alone, i decided it is time to up my exercise a bit. to that end i (re)joined the Y a few days ago. it is about a mile from me, so i have a feeling i'll just expand my walk to hit the Y every other day or so for a while until i have a good niche to fit that in.

i have to say that while on an intermittent fast, it is not hard to get motivated for morning exercise. at this point my body has not had any fuel for well over 14 hours and i'm sure i'm in a fat burning state. it's well documented that a pound of fat is 3500 calories. if i can even burn 500kcal/ day in exercise, that will supplement my dieting loss by a pound a week i'll take that any day!
 
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